Trailblazer Tot He's Already Made History

Little Archie Is Declared the Poster Boy for a New World

- Tony Powell

Master Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor is a symbol of something more than royalty – a globalised world where old assumptions are crumbling. And nobody could be more aware of this than his besotted parents, Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.

He is the first half-American in the immediate royal family. He is the first modern royal with African blood. He is the first royal with slaves as ancestors.

The former leader of the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission, broadcaster Trevor Phillips, sees him as a catalyst for fundamental change.

In an open letter to Archie, he writes, “You are the fruit of a joyous, contemporary love match… Over your lifetime,

what we call ‘race’ could become near to irrelevant. You will be the poster boy for this new world.”

He says Harry and Meghan’s firstborn will carry a responsibility

to be “a bridge between white Britain and black Britain”.

“Everyone will be watching to see how you manage being the inheritor of two very different traditions.”

It’s a tough set of expectations, especially set against his parents’ desire to give their son privacy and space as he grows up.

“It’s a conundrum,” says a palace insider. “Even the royal family need a lot of privacy, but their position means they have to be public a lot of the time.

“I suspect in this new baby’s case, the answer will be to damp down the royal side of things and increase the world outlook – no little Englander stuff. He will be a citizen of the world.”